fines – Azerbaijan Internet Watch

Parts of this entry are based on reporting published by Qəzetçi. Below is a translated, edited, and expanded version of the original.

Azerbaijan’s parliament (Milli Majlis) is debating a package of amendments to the Law on Information, Informatization and Protection of Information and the Law on the Protection of Children from Harmful Information that would, for the first time, formally require global social media platforms to register in the country, open local representative offices, and enforce a higher minimum age for users.

Under the draft, platforms that fail to comply face financial sanctions of 100,000 to 300,000 AZN, as well as the possibility of being blocked in the country. According to Farid Pardashunas, a board member of the Press Council, platforms will be given 12 months to comply once the law enters into force, and companies such as Meta, Google, and TikTok would be expected to open offices in Baku and set up Azerbaijani-language support services — a model he compared to neighboring Turkey.

Age restrictions raised from 13 to 16

The amendments, under discussion since early June, would prohibit the creation of social media accounts for children under 16, above the minimum age of 13 that most platforms currently apply. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, Snapchat, and other networks would reportedly fall within the law’s scope. Existing accounts would be reviewed after the law takes effect, and accounts whose holders’ ages cannot be verified would be deleted. Users aged 16–18 would be subject to parental consent and oversight, special safety measures, content and advertising restrictions, and geolocation limits.

Age verification, according to Havva Huseynli, head of the cooperation and communication sector at the Electronic Security Service, would rely on cross-checking bank card data (via temporary blocking of funds), email, and mobile phone numbers. Huseynli said personal data would be used solely for age verification and would be deleted immediately if a match is not confirmed. The proposed changes were also discussed at a June 10 meeting between the Presidential Administration and NGO representatives.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and Education has already moved ahead with its own restrictions. Deputy Minister Firudin Gurbanov said on June 8 that access to TikTok has been blocked in schools, that internet filtering is applied to schoolchildren’s access more broadly, and that videos on more than 200 “dangerous topics” have been restricted.

Tax registration as a parallel track

Separately, starting September 2026, foreign digital service providers operating in Azerbaijan’s e-commerce market with an annual turnover exceeding 10,000 USD will be required to register electronically with the tax authorities. The State Tax Service announced on May 10 that ten foreign digital service providers — including Apple, Adobe, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Epic Games, and Chess.com — have already registered. Notably, Meta’s platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), which provide e-commerce services in Azerbaijan, are absent from the published list.

Experts warn of vague criteria, privacy risks, and potential for abuse

Internet technology expert Osman Gunduz noted that Azerbaijan has 17-year-olds building AI businesses, coding, launching startups, and competing in international olympiads and hackathons — often with digital skills exceeding those of their parents. Gunduz also warned that the proposed verification methods (mobile number, email, bank card) can be circumvented — a child can simply use a parent’s phone or card — while leaving verification to the platforms themselves creates the risk of transferring identity data of millions of users to foreign companies.

Lawyer Yalchin Imanov told Qəzetçi that protecting minors online is a normal legislative practice, pointing to Australia’s law, in force since December of last year, as the first of its kind. But he stressed that such changes must go through public consultation first — something absent in Azerbaijan, where restrictions on information sources and social networks surface either only during parliamentary debates or after adoption. “That is the dangerous side of the matter,” he said. Imanov also noted the ambiguity of what the “200+ dangerous topics” restricted in schools actually cover, at a time when access to pornographic and other content remains freely available in the country. Given the authorities’ track record of intolerance toward freedom of expression and alternative sources of information, he said, the possibility that minors’ access to such sources will be restricted cannot be ruled out.

According to available figures, Azerbaijan has 7.6 million social media users — 1.65 million on Facebook, 4.73 million on Instagram, and over 6 million on TikTok, with WhatsApp the most active messaging app. The state’s interest in platforms is not limited to regulation: as Qazqazinfo reported back in 2024, the State Oil Fund (SOFAZ) has invested 179 million USD in Meta.

Background: previous attempts to monitor and control social media platforms

The current draft is the most concrete step yet in a longer trajectory of state efforts to bring social media under regulatory control, which Azerbaijan Internet Watch has documented over the years:

The 2017 amendments to the Law on Information. First adopted in 1998 as a technical regulation, the Law on Information, Informatization and Protection of Information was converted into a content-regulation instrument through restrictive amendments introduced on March 10, 2017 — the same law now being amended to cover platform registration. Together with the Code of Administrative Offenses (Articles 388 and 388-1), it has served as the primary legal basis for blocking websites and prosecuting online speech, see AIW’s coverage of the legal framework.
Prosecutor General’s Office as a de facto content regulator. AIW’s May 2022 legal analysis, “Who regulates content online in Azerbaijan”, documented the pattern of the Prosecutor’s Office issuing warnings and administrative charges against social media users, bloggers, and website editors for “disseminating prohibited information” — a practice that intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, when one MP even proposed a special unit to monitor social media platforms and hold users spreading “rumors” accountable.
Press Council proposals and the local-representation agenda. As early as 2020–2022, the Press Council proposed establishing a commission with the Prosecutor’s Office to regulate the media and floated regulating social media platforms. Media law expert Khalid Aghaliyev assessed at the time that these proposals were linked to the state’s intention to have platforms open representative offices in Azerbaijan and then use those offices to consolidate control over the platforms — precisely the mechanism now written into the draft amendments.
The 2022 Media Law. Adopted by parliament in December 2021 and signed in February 2022 despite widespread domestic and international criticism, the Law on Media extended restrictive registration and licensing requirements to online media and journalists. AIW’s legal opinion “New Media Law: implications for online media/journalism in Azerbaijan” detailed its adverse implications, and the mandatory media registry it created has since been used to deny registration to independent outlets.
The March 2026 presidential decree. The current amendments follow directly from a decree signed by President Ilham Aliyev on March 1, 2026, focused on children’s online safety, which introduced age restrictions on registering for social platforms and instructed the Cabinet of Ministers to draft implementing legislation within three months — a timeline consistent with the amendments now before parliament.
Expanding regulatory ambitions. The move also comes amid a broader push to regulate the digital sphere, including the government’s recent initiative to regulate AI-generated content and the creation of a new Digital Development Council in February 2026.

Viewed against this background, the framing of the current amendments around child safety mirrors earlier legislative moves in which protective language accompanied provisions that expanded the state’s leverage over online platforms and speech. The combination of mandatory local representation, steep fines, and blocking powers replicates the model adopted in Turkey and Russia — a model that in both countries has been used to pressure platforms into removing content and handing over user data.

This is part one in a series of detailed reports and analysis on existing legal amendments and new legislation affecting freedom of expression, media, and online rights in Azerbaijan and their compliance with international standards for freedom of expression.

In March of last year, AIW shared an update about amendments to an existing bill on Information provisions, Informatization, and Protection of Information and Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Now, let’s take a closer look at these amendments and what they entail.

Amendments to the Information Law

Amendments to an existing bill on Information provisions, Informatization, and Protection of Information extended the subjects – to users – of responsibilities for placement of prohibited information, including the “false information” on information-telecommunication networks.

This means that amendments establish the liability over the information-telecommunication network users to place prohibited content on the information-telecommunication networks;

The amendments also added an item to the list of prohibited content, forbidding the placement of false information: thus, prohibited information was considered “false information [yalan məlumatlar] in case it posed a threat to harm human life and health, cause significant property damage, mass violation of public safety, disrupt life support facilities, financial, transport, communications, industrial, energy and social infrastructure facilities or other socially dangerous consequences.”

In other words, if users placed content on the internet that might be considered false information capable to disrupt the functioning of state bodies or their activities it can be considered on the grounds of violating the existing law.

Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences

During the same plenary meeting on March 17, 2020, an amendment to article 388-1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (CAO) of Law No. 27-VIQD was also approved.

Article 388-1 of the CAO was aggravated with the penalty of up to one-month administrative detention with other sanctions against real or legal person owners of internet information resources and associated domain names as well as on users of information-telecommunication networks for the placement, or the violation of provisions of the Information Law aiming at preventing the placement, of prohibited information on such internet information resources.

With the amendments introduced to laws, users of the information-telecommunication network, owners of internet information resources, and domain names might be punished under Article 388-1 of the CAO. The penalty for the offense is a fine between 500 and 1000 manats (about US$294–$588) for real persons and 1000 to 1500 manats for officials, with an option of up to one month of administrative detention for both classes of persons depending on the circumstances and the identity of the offender.

Implementation of the Amendments (abuse of application)

Shortly after the amendments, police applied these provisions frequently against individuals, including political activists and journalists despite the call from the United Nations, Council of Europe, and OSCE expert bodies urging the authorities to address the disinformation in the first instance by relevant government institutions, providing reliable information and resorting to other restrictive measures, only where they met the standards of necessity and proportionality. This did not prevent authorities from targeting a number of activists and journalists in the following days.

On April 16, 2020, Human Rights Watch documented how Azerbaijani authorities abused quarantine restrictions allegedly to fight with disinformation while arresting opposition activists and silencing the government critics. HRW documented at least six activists and opposition journalists’ sentenced to detentions ranging from 10 to 30 days.

March 21, 2020, Ilgar Atayev was called in for questioning and charged with article 388.1 of the code of administrative offenses – sharing prohibited information on the Internet or Internet – telecommunication networks. According to Meydan TV, an independent online news platform, although Atayev informed that the charges against him were sent to court, he was not aware of the exact accusation. Authorities claimed at the time, Atayev, shared information on COVID without quoting official sources and that the shared information was false.

March 23, 2020, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ press service, three people were administratively arrested for allegedly spreading misinformation about the coronavirus infection.

March 27, 2020, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ press service, between March 26 and 27, 15 people were identified and summoned to the local police on the grounds of allegedly spreading misinformation about the coronavirus infection on social networks and WhatsApp instant messaging application. After the relevant investigations, police warned seven people, fined five, and sentenced three to administrative detention.

April 4, 2020, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ press service, during the control measures carried out between April 1-2, one person was administratively arrested, and five people were fined for allegedly spreading false information about the coronavirus infection on social networks, including WhatsApp instant messaging application.

April 6, 2020, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ press service, one person received a warning for allegedly spreading false information about the coronavirus infection on social networks, including WhatsApp instant messaging application.

Amid on-going arrests, detentions, and fines, on April 3, 2020, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement noting that press freedom must not be undermined by measures to counter disinformation about COVID-19.

Analysis of the law

Content regulation rules and policies which presumably touch on the freedom of speech must meet the strict criteria under international and regional human rights law. According to the European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence, a strict three-part test is required for any content-based restriction.

The Court notes that the first and most crucial requirement of Article 10 of the Convention is that any interference by a public authority with the exercise of the freedom of expression should be lawful.

The second paragraph of Article 10 stipulates that any restriction on expression must be “prescribed by law”. Furthermore, any restrictions need to be necessary for a democratic society [See Sunday Times v. UK (No. 2), Series A no. 217, 26.11.1991, para. 50; Okçuoğlu v. Turkey, No. 24246/94, 8.7.1999, para. 43.] and the state interference should correspond to a “pressing social need”.[See Sürek v. Turkey (No. 1) (Application No. 26682/95), the judgment of 8 July 1999, Reports 1999; Sürek (No. 3) judgment of 8 July 1999.] The state response and the limitations provided by law should be “proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued” [See Bladet Tromsø and Stensaas v. Norway [GC], no. 21980/93, ECHR 1999-III.] Therefore, the necessity of the content-based restrictions must be convincingly established by the state [The Observer and The Guardian v. the United Kingdom, the judgment of 26 November 1991, Series A no. 216, pp. 29-30, § 59.]

The Law on Information, Informatisation, and Protection of Information (Law № 460-IQ)

In 2017, the Law (1998) was updated with a series of restrictive amendments, converting the Law from a technical regulation into a content regulation.

Primary concerns of the Law concerning content regulation:

Owner of the Internet information resource, including owners of the domain name, host, and internet providers bear a strict administrative liability to remove the content manifestly prohibited under article 13-2.3 within 8 hours of notice;

In urgent cases, [when the legally protected interests of the state and society are threatened or there is a real threat to human life and health requires to do] the internet information resource may be temporarily restricted on the basis of a decision of the regulatory body – Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies [restriction is applied without a court order. Although an application is made to the court, the decision to close down the online information source remains in force until the court handles the case or the decision is annulled.]

In refusing to remove the content upon the government’s notice within the 9 hours, owners of internet information resources, owners of domain names, host, and internet providers will face a court sue with possible administrative sanctions.

Safeguards against removal and blocking procedures:

Article 13-3.1 of the law provides that the relevant executive authority (regulatory body) shall issue a warning to the owner of the Internet information resource and its domain name and the hosting provider in writing if it directly discovers cases of placement of prohibited information in the Internet information resource or identifies it based on substantiated information received from individuals, legal entities or government agencies;

Existing legislation and practice concerning content removal and blocking do not provide adequate safeguards against arbitrariness;

for instance, there is no requirement to inform the information resource owners, Internet and host providers or owners of other sites and their users before issuing the content removal warning, and failure to implement the warning leads to a penalty because the Code of Administrative Offenses provides for liability for both the posting of prohibited information and the failure to remove prohibited information posted on the Internet.

The Law on Information, Informatisation, and Protection of Information provide that warning about content removal is considered a mandatory requirement and that failure to obey is sanctioned under Article 388-1.1 of the CAO and possible court sue for block order.

Content removal and blocking procedures also lack transparency and fairness:

The law does not oblige the regulatory body to provide the information resource owners, internet and host providers, or other sites’ substantiated opinion reasoning for the content prohibited. In other words, the regulatory body and other state authorities can request to remove the content or block access to websites without any obligation to substantiate their demands.

Vague Terms and Quality Law Standards:

Sufficient clarity is the requirement of the quality law standard established by the ECHR case-law which requires that the law be both adequately accessible and foreseeable, that is, formulated with sufficient precision to enable the individual to foresee the consequences which a given action may entail, and indicate with sufficient clarity the scope of any discretion conferred on the competent authorities and the manner of its exercise [see Hasan and Chaush v. Bulgaria [GC], no. 30985/96, § 84, ECHR 2000‑XI; and Ahmet Yıldırım, cited above, §§ 57 and 59].

In the list of prohibited information envisaged in the Law on Information, Informatisation, and Protection of Information, the definition of what entails prohibited content is described with vague expressions that are open to excessive interpretations. With these terms, the state authorities “enjoy” a broad discretion power to categorize any information as prohibited (Law № 460-IQ).

For instance, article 13-2.3.2 of the Law (№ 460-IQ) classifies the information on the promotion of violence and religious extremism and calls for the separation of territorial integrity as prohibited content. The religious extremism and calls for the separation of territorial integrity are vague terms and lack sufficient clarity.

The Law on Combat with Religious Extremism (LCRE) adopted in December 2015, in article 1.0.1.1 defines religious extremism with vague and problematic expressions. The Law refers to acts as “humiliating national dignity,” “compromising religion,” and “preparing, storing and disseminating religious extremist material” as amounting to religious extremism. Expressions such as “national dignity” or “humiliation of national dignity” are non-legal concepts that are not defined in the domestic laws and therefore subject to broad interpretation by the authorities applying them, opening the way to misinterpretation of the concept and its application in an arbitrary manner [Furthermore, article 1.0.1.6 of the LCRE refers to “forcing someone to practice any religion (religious belief), including performing religious ceremonies and rituals as well as to religious education” as another act of religious extremism, which is equally problematic and may collide with the idea of spreading ideas of religious beliefs and inviting others to join, as a part of exercising freedom of religion, subject to the interpretation of the two concepts by the authorities, in absence of any criteria or clear terms in place. As the ECtHR has ruled, freedom of religion and the freedom to change religion in particular cover activities aimed at persuading others to change religion.]

Procedural safeguards:

Another problematic provision is article 13-2.3.9 of the law, which classifies insult and slander as the prohibited content online. Generally, the legislation of Azerbaijan provides for both civil action and criminal prosecution of defamation. As to the criminal prosecution of defamation, as of March 2017, there are four articles in the Criminal Code that provide criminal liability for defamation. With the amendments to the Law on Information, Informatization, and Protection of Information and Code of Administrative Offences on 17 March 2020, defamation is now sanctioned under the code of administrative offenses.

In practice, police often apply this provision against people who allegedly insult police or other state officials.

On June 27, 2020, police arrested and fined several individuals who criticized the singers who devoted a song to the police claiming, they allegedly insulted the singers on social networks, insulted their honor and dignity. Meydan TV’s investigation revealed that most of those punished were representatives of opposition parties such as the Popular Front, Musavat and public activists. They were punished under Article 388-1 (posting of information prohibited from dissemination on the Internet).

However, the application of this provision contradicts with the domestic legislation. In Azerbaijan, it is not up to the police to classify the information on the grounds of slander or insult and instead is defined exclusively by the respective domestic courts upon the complaints of the individuals.

According to well-established court practice, courts always decide to conduct an expert examination to assess whether information/opinion is insulting or slanderous, and then the judge relies on the result of the expert examination. Furthermore, the law does not exclude the possibility that the same statement may be subject to both civil and criminal proceedings for defamation.

Furthermore, the law does not specify how the sanction might be imposed if alleged prohibited content is identified. It is not clear from the text whether the website user will bear the responsibility alone or together with the owner of the internet or host provider. It is seemingly left to the executive authority to decide. For instance, in the case of a media article that allegedly contains prohibited content, the government may block the website forever in parallel, imposing sanctions on the content owner (user of the information resource).

Proportionate and necessary:

As discussed above, if the restriction does not meet proportionality and necessity requirements, the content removal or blocking measures may lead to violation of freedom of expression guaranteed under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Law on Information, Informatisation, and Protection of Information fail to specify a definition of the categories of blocking orders, such as blocking of entire websites, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, ports, network protocols or types of use, like social networking, including a limit on the duration of the blocking order which is crucial parameters of the interference to assess whether applied methods are proportionate and necessary in a democratic society to limit the freedom of expression.

Conclusion

This ambiguous law gives extensive flexibility for the state to consider different, particularly critical views as false and government views as correct. The new amendments stipulate that the information shared on the Internet, which disrupts activities of the state institutions, is prohibited and punishable under the Code of Administrative Offences. While false information is also prohibited and punishable if such information threatens other socially dangerous consequences, which the law does not define.

Such vague definitions and ambiguous expressions provide extensive discretion powers for the state authorities, allowing them to label critical views as false and prohibited. Given the abovementioned concerns, the Law on Information, Informatisation, and Protection of Information does not comply with international standards on freedom of expression. Its scope remains incredibly broad in terms of vague definitions, lack of safeguards, and procedural guarantees.

Tag: fines

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